On The Gist, bone saws and Jamal Khashoggi. When Joe Hagan began working on the story of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone, Wenner was on board. But as Wenner slowly realized Hagan was writing the true story rather than Wenner’s story, things got a bit rough. Hagan joins us to discuss Wenner, reactions since publication, and the tricks of writing about a narcissist. Hagan’s book is Sticky Fingers: The Life and Times of Jann Wenner and Rolling Stone Magazine.  In the Spiel, the civility of debates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Saudi Arabia, Trump, and Jamal Khashoggi.  Comedy Cellar owner Noam Dworman has had a post-scandal Louis C.K. take to his stage six times now. Why does he welcome him, and if he doesn’t draw the line at Louis, is it somewhere else?  In the Spiel, the death of Nevada Republican candidate Dennis Hof.  This episode is brought to you by Merrill Lynch. Get started today at ML.com/you. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, unpacking CNN’s list of top Democratic challengers ahead of 2020. Katmai National Park and Preserve’s publicity stunt worked: For one week (that’s Fat Bear Week), the internet delighted in the tournament bracket that would crown the plumpest predator of them all. Carnivore ecologist Rae Wynn-Grant tells us about the brown bear’s diet, the unknown mechanics of hibernation, and why fattest really means fittest for the competition’s chunky winner (Beadnose!). In the Spiel, what to make of Elizabeth Warren’s DNA-testing gambit. This episode is brought to you by the following advertisers: SimpliSafe, protect your home today with twenty-four seven monitoring for just fifteen dollars a month, visit simplisafe.com/gist. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, how coverage of bisexuality has changed (for the better). Thanksgiving approaches, and with it all the tension that comes with mixing family and politics in the age of Trump. In that setting, Ike Barinholtz saw grist for a political comedy. He directs and stars in The Oath, in which a family reunion is cleaved by the federal government’s push for Americans to sign a “loyalty waiver to the president.” In the Spiel, what Arizona Senate candidate Kyrsten Sinema did as congresswoman is much more important than what she did … in a tutu? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Beto O’Rourke and Ted Cruz. At first The Good Place on NBC appears to be a light and easy sitcom about a bad apple accidentally dropped into heaven, but look at little deeper and you’ll find a smart and dense comedy about moral philosophy. Creator Mike Schur joins us to discuss this show’s moral compass, baseball, and the Kant of it all. The Good Place airs on Thursdays on NBC.  In the Spiel, Trump’s rally in Erie, Pennsylvania. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, should we continue to trust Facebook with our data?  Saudi Arabia’s disastrous war with rebel tribes in Yemen is 3½ years deep, as is America’s support for it. Michael Knights, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, details the kingdom’s goals: stopping the missile attacks sailing in from Yemen, restoring the country’s ousted leaders, and countering the rebels’ biggest ally, Iran. In the Spiel, the disappearance of abortion providers, the rise of crisis pregnancy centers, and what Google can do about it. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, it would be cynical to view the Supreme Court as illegitimate. Brett Kavanaugh has done it. But how will the other members of the Supreme Court treat him? And does his promotion affect the American people’s faith in the nation’s highest court? Slate’s courts correspondent Dahlia Lithwick joins us to discuss. In the Spiel, back in the private sector, Nikki Haley can look forward to making Hope Hicks–level money (which, incredibly, is a lot of money). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, after all of that, not a single senator changed his or her vote to back (or stop) Kavanaugh. In the interview, Jill Lepore’s new book focuses in part on the marginalized groups forgotten by other American histories. It also denounces the polling industry born in the ’30s, which turned politics into business even as it ignored black Americans, slowing their march for civil rights. Lepore’s book is These Truths: A History of the United States. In the Spiel, don’t forget that the political pendulum always swings back. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, the hippocampus has its moment. Tom Arnold believes incriminating tapes of Donald Trump are out there, and he wants to find them. In his new series for Viceland, The Hunt for the Trump Tapes, he’s looking for anything from more Access Hollywood obscenities to the infamous pee tape. But would publishing any of these actually change anything about politics today? In the Spiel, the rhetoric of “sitting Trump” versus “standing Trump.” Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Brett Kavanaugh’s high school and college buddies had some weird nicknames, and it’s not helping his case. Rebecca Traister is angry, and she knows other women are too. Events from Trump’s election through the #MeToo movement inspired her new book, Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women’s Anger. In the Spiel, Mike read the New York Times’ expose on how Donald Trump got rich—so you don’t have to. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Beto O’Rourke has the momentum but also a mountain to climb.  In the interview, Neal Katyal has argued 37 cases before the Supreme Court, and (better yet!) joined Mike Pesca on stage at Slate Day in Austin, Texas. Our condensed version of the interview covers the implications of a confirmed Brett Kavanaugh, why Robert Mueller “will have the last laugh” when it comes to taking on Trump, and what the indictment of a sitting U.S. president would look like.  In the Spiel, what mothers of sons have to say about Kavanaugh. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, guest host John McWhorter considers campus safe spaces.  In the past few years, college campuses have been shifting away from havens for free speech to safe spaces that bar divisive speakers from campus. But is this the right move, or are we damaging the growth of college students by creating these spaces rather than offering intellectual challenges. Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt explore this in their new book The Coddling of the American Mind. Lukianoff joins us on the Gist to discuss.  In the Spiel, are the new models of protest a useful continuation of the civil rights movement? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, guest host Isaac Butler talks about all the news we forgot about thanks to the Kavanaugh hearing. The Constitution is a sacred text in America, but should it be? Heidi Schreck’s play What the Constitution Means to Me tackles that question through her high school experience of giving speeches about the Constitution to put herself through college. Today, she and her director, Oliver Butler, join us to discuss the fresh importance of the play, what sort of impact the Constitution has on women, and what can be drawn from a theatrical analysis of the Kavanaugh hearing. What the Constitution Means to Me is running at the New York Theatre Workshop through Oct. 28.  In the Spiel, Butler considers the nature of conspiracy theories in America and what Kavanaugh has made us forget. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, the Kavanaugh hearing. By all accounts, Derek Black was supposed to become the next David Duke. He was the man’s godson, after all, and his father, Don Black, had founded Stormfront, the world’s first and biggest white nationalist website. But then Derek went to New College of Florida, where—as told by the Washington Post’s Eli Saslow—he was shunned by many of his peers for his racist views, and embraced by a few despite them. Saslow’s book is Rising Out of Hatred: The Awakening of a Former White Nationalist.  In the Spiel, more on the Kavanaugh hearing, and Trump’s continuing belief that 52 percent of women voted for him. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, the GOP hired a woman! Nicole Holofcener’s films have centered women for more than two decades, but her latest one, The Land of Steady Habits,focuses on a man’s tumultuous story arc. She joins us to talk about adaptations (it was a novel before Holofcener made it into a movie), the slow and deliberate process of directing, and why she hates hearing people chew. The Land of Steady Habits is now on Netflix. In the Spiel, Kavanaugh’s three accusers tell different stories, but many Republican senators are somehow dismissing them all. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Trump gets laughs at the United Nations. After a few eccentric comedy specials, Bo Burnham next turned to his sympathy for the anxieties of middle school girls, and made a movie. If Eighth Grade (starring Elsie Fisher) seems to imitate life so well, it’s because Burnham watched hundreds of vlogs made by today’s junior high generation.  In the Spiel, standards of proof in the Kavanaugh case. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, how the breaking news machine bungled the Rod Rosenstein story. In the interview, California is set to ban certain restaurants from serving straws unless customers ask for one. But given that straws represent a tiny fraction of the plastics choking our oceans, can initiatives like these really make a difference? Ban-the-straw advocate Dune Ives says targeting the straw is, in part, a way to move on to blocking other plastics from the world’s waste stream. In the Spiel, the air is thick with terrible arguments both for and against Brett Kavanaugh.      Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, National Review has one good take on the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation story … and a lot of bad ones. In the interview, we’re used to thinking of societies along the “liberal/conservative” spectrum, but cultural psychologist Michele Gelfand has her own axis to consider: tight versus loose. They aren’t quite the same: Abu Dhabi, for instance, may be conservative, but its role as the crossroads of the Middle East lends it looser norms. In Scandinavia, we’ve got the opposite. Gelfand’s book is Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World. In the Spiel, you wrote in, and Mike read up: It’s time for the Lobstar of the Antentwig. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Christine Blasey Ford deserves a hearing on her own terms, and that’s all we can say for now. Bert Kreischer is a comic who started out as just the biggest college partier in America according to Rolling Stone magazine in 1997. Since then he’s been grappling with fame, how much of his own life to use for comedy, and the way his father shamed him into doing stand-up comedy. Kreischer’s new special on Netflix is Secret Time. In the Spiel, Jeopardy finally notices podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, the latest in inane Trump statements. Climate change is bigger than any one of us, including the president of the United States. Given his backward policies and denials of scientific fact, he deserves his share of criticism in the aftermath of Hurricane Florence. Climate scientist Andrea Schumacher explains which aspects of hurricane season can be expected to get worse as the planet warms. Schumacher is a research associate at the Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere at Colorado State University. In the Spiel, ­­more on John Hockenberry. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, taking issue with the sloppy headlines about the support (or lack thereof) for Brett Kavanaugh. In the interview, Stacey Abrams’ run for governor in Georgia has been criticized because of her huge outstanding debt. That got Ozy.com reporter Nick Fouriezos wondering how much political candidates typically owe as they run for office. He dug into the finances of 396 political candidates to see how much they owed, and to whom. In the Spiel, a presidential penis prognostic. You’re welcome. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Hurricane Florence. Ethan Hawke has stunned us with his earnest, moving performances on-screen, but he’s also a talent behind the camera. His new directorial feature Blaze explores the life and love of the largely forgotten musician Blaze Foley. He joins us to talk filmmaking, the difficulty of music, comic book movies, and why we should appreciate criticism from our elders. Blaze premieres nationwide on Sept. 21.  In the Spiel, the allegations of Kavanaugh’s sexual assault. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Vladimir Putin, RT, and the Salisbury poisoning.   Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might have scary values to conservatives. But to the national director of the Democratic Socialists of America, she’s a moderate. Maria Svart calls the DSA a “big tent organization,” meaning it makes room for everything from AOC’s Scandinavian-style social policies to the more radical workforce ownership of businesses.  In the Spiel, the end of primary season. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, John Hockenberry’s piece in Harper’s. Donald Trump is no stranger to settlements, and the latest of these come between his administration and hundreds of asylum-seekers. They were rejected after making their cases under the duress of being separated from their children … or their parents. “How are the kids supposed to say why they fear persecution? Try having that conversation with a 4-year-old,” says Margo Schlanger, who headed the Department of Homeland Security’s Office for Civil Rights and Civil Liberties under Obama. If approved by the court, the settlement would give the migrants a second chance to apply for asylum.  In the Spiel, impeachment.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Vladimir Putin’s “private citizen” excuse doesn’t hold water. In the interview, philanthropic billionaires are better than villainous ones, but Anand Giridharadas argues they could do better. Instead of insisting on the superiority of private efforts, they ought to pay more taxes and leave some things to the government. Giridharadas’ book is Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World. In the Spiel, FiveThirtyEight currently says Republicans have a 1-in-6 chance of keeping the House. What else has that kind of odds? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Mike is thinking he’ll vote Andrew Cuomo—but he’s open to you changing his mind. The 2014 shooting of Michael Brown upheaved many things in the U.S., including the career of DeRay Mckesson, who quit his job as an educator to become a full-time activist. Now he uses his podcast Pod Save the Peopleas a national platform to speak out against police violence and highlight news that flies under the radar. Mckesson’s new memoir is On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope. In the Spiel, want to feel less anxious? Put the phone down. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, are we having a national crisis? The New York Times’ publication of an anonymous op-ed has sparked rounds of speculation as to who’s behind it—and the deep-state trappings it describes. Some see the word “lodestar” as signature Mike Pence, but as Sadia Afroz explains, stylometry—the analysis of prose to uncover its author’s identity—is a little more complicated than looking at individual words. Afroz is a senior research scientist at the International Computer Science Institute. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Lincoln, Kennedy, and Lincoln Kennedy could all speak better than President Trump. If you’re old enough to remember November 2016, you know that telling a good story—even an untrue one—wins elections. Author Yuval Noah Harari worries that populism has liberalism beat on this front, especially given an uncertain future looming with AI, biotechnology, and the possible obsolescence of the human worker. Harari’s new book is 21 Lessons for the 21st Century. In the Spiel, a lawmaker’s voting record is the only thing we should judge them on. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation hearing. The Pentagon’s third-in-command is reportedly losing his job, and it’s hardly making news. As the Defense Department’s first-ever chief management officer, John Gibson is in charge of saving billions of dollars for reinvestment. He’s to be fired because of a reported “lack of performance,” but Defense News’ Aaron Mehta says the task was nearly impossible in the first place.  In the Spiel, who really wrote that New York Times op-ed?  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Bob Woodward’s good intentions. Wealth and road trips are two of America’s favorite obsessions. In his new novel, Lake Success, Gary Shteyngart explores these themes through the story of a hedge fund manager who, after a crisis, takes a trip across the country by bus. Shteyngart joins us today to discuss his research on Wall Street, the concept of privilege, and his trips on Greyhound busses.   In the Spiel, Gwyneth Paltrow and jade eggs. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court confirmation is all but certain. A recent Donald Trump tweet gave credence to a bogus (and dangerous) claim: that South Africa’s white farmers are the first targets in a looming genocide. Quartz reporter Lynsey Chutel has the actual statistics, as well as the political context—land reform—that pushed white nationalists into embracing victimhood in the first place. In the Spiel, a roundup of the minor scandals that broke over Labor Day weekend. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Democrats, Republicans, and the N-word. Facebook now has television shows. While it might be surprising for viewers, for creators it’s an exciting new avenue to find an audience for shows not necessarily meant for the mainstream. Strangers is precisely one of those shows, about two queer women trying to make it in New York City. Creator Mia Lidofsky joins us to discuss her show, how wonderfully queer it is, and what it’s like making a show for Facebook. The new season of Strangers is all available to stream on Facebook Watch.  In the Spiel, funerals.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, there’s no use sugarcoating Starbucks’ Frappuccino. And in the interview… unprecedented! Preposterous! Unimaginable! Trump’s presidency and the GOP’s machinations actually do have antecedents, says historian Heather Cox Richardson. They’re in the 1890s, when robber barons partnered with the Republican Party to pack the courts. Richardson is the author of To Make Men Free: A History of the Republican Party.  In the Spiel, what do we make of the Catholic Church? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, war games are back. Hoaxes have fooled us at least since the era of P.T. Barnum, but they’re especially prevalent in our era of political disinformation. Kevin Young is the author of Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post-Facts, and Fake News and tells us about the racist roots of the hoax and how hoaxes often lead us to believe what we wanted to in the first place. In the Spiel, Trump shouldn’t try to critique an algorithm. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Louis C.K. isn’t as despised as Twitter makes it seem, which is why an eventual comeback is likely. In the interview, Maria Konnikova breaks down the science of fasting, and why it’s currently associated with cancer treatments. Can it really help reduce cancer growth? And is it a useful practice for healthy individuals? Konnikova is a New Yorker contributor and the author of The Confidence Game. In the Spiel, gerrymandering is bad for democracy and great for the GOP. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, the news media reveres John McCain because he failed with grace—and wasn’t too conservative. Chances are you’ve heard #AbolishICE before. Journalist and activist Sean McElwee kick-started it and argues it’s not just the agency that needs to go down, but the criminalization of undocumented residence within American borders. In the Spiel, stupid stuff comes in threes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, guest host Stephanie Foo dives into Crazy Rich Asians, speaking with friend and fellow producer Kat Chow about Asian representation in media, the inspiration to create, and a hope that this film will lead to more Asian-centered media.  Then she speaks with producer and former film professor B.A. Parker about seeing your own culture depicted on screen, and how exciting it is to see stories and jokes not meant for you.  In the Spiel, Stephanie considers whether America has failed her, and why she is so proud of being an immigrant. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, nobody move or the economy gets it, Trump says. The guys behind the left’s most irreverent podcast (Chapo Trap House) want the Democratic Party to forget about Robert Mueller and set their sights on 2020. But in the short term? They’re rooting for a blue wave. Alongside Felix Biederman and Brendan James, Thursday’s guests Matt Christman, Will Menaker, and Virgil Texas are co-authors of The Chapo Guide to Revolution: A Manifesto Against Logic, Facts, and Reason. In the Spiel, when you hear “everyone does it” down in Washington, you know something’s amiss. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, guest host Alex Roarty thinks Sen. Elizabeth Warren has a way better message than simply “impeach Trump.”     #NeverTrump Republicans are a vanishing breed. Crooked Media’s Tim Miller is one of them, and he tells Alex that the news media’s biases favor president Trump more than they weigh him down.  In the Spiel, history suggests Democrats will sweep the House in November. But don’t forget that we’re dealing with the poll-defying Donald Trump here.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, guest host Max Kerman considers why politicians are getting duped by Sacha Baron Cohen. Trump has lied so many times since he took office that it’s difficult for the normal person to focus on them. Luckily we’ve got Daniel Dale at the Toronto Star keeping track. Dale joins us to talk about what it’s like reporting on American politics as a Canadian, including the similarities of covering former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford. In the Spiel, how to engage with trolls. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, how will Rudy Giuliani go down in history, and in public memory? The midterm elections are looming, and the big question is how far the Democrats will go. Are they really likely to retake the House of Representatives? And how would that affect Trump’s re-election campaign in 2020? Gist guest host Steve Kornacki talks to another political statistics wiz, Sean Trende of RealClearPolitics, about why we should be wary of using probabilities to predict elections. In the Spiel, a tale of clear state borders and unclear rules.   Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, if Trump weren’t so repulsive, would we judge his murky dealings a little more kindly? And we don’t much think about the inanimate objects in our lives, never considering the rich inner life of the lamppost, the can of Coke, or the humble pillow. But Ian Chillag knows they have stories to tell, and he gets them to speak out in his new podcast Everything Is Alive. In the Spiel, Mike talks to the guest hosts who will rule The Gist all next week. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, the free press. Aretha Franklin has died at 76, and she was much more than a golden voice. Slate’s Chris Molanphy recalls her talents at the piano and in the composition room, where she wrote timeless music and, with her covers, transformed songs from her own genre and beyond. (See “Bridge Over Troubled Water,” “Let It Be,” and, of course, “Respect.”) Molanphy is the host of the Slate podcast Hit Parade.  In the Spiel, the straw ban and balloons. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, autocracy isn’t always bad for an economy. But as Turkey shows, idiocy definitely is. Reality television has a reputation for uninhibited narcissism, ruthless competition, and terrible business pitches. But when Jon Murray created The Real World in 1992, he worked to make something complex and innovative, not a circus of humanity’s basest instincts. And in A&E’s Born This Way, Murray follows the lives of individuals with Down syndrome in Los Angeles, sharing their laughter and tears, their beautiful community, and how they strive to be just like everyone else. In the Spiel, Christine Hallquist makes history. Can she do it again in November? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, should news outlets halt election coverage on Election Day? “Usually, if you look at American history, we’ve kind of taken a relook at our democracy every 50 years.” And now we’re overdue, according to Jason Kander, an Army veteran and Democratic candidate for mayor of Kansas City. The big things to shake up: how we draw district lines, run primaries, and finance electoral campaigns. Kander’s book is Outside the Wire: Ten Lessons I've Learned in Everyday Courage.  In the Spiel, the president and nondisclosure agreements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, Trump is a racist? That’s not much of a scoop, Omarosa. There were plenty of Republicans standing against Donald Trump—before he won the White House. After the 2016 election, many of them traded in their values for a seat on the bandwagon. Rick Wilson isn’t among them, and he explains why in his new book Everything Trump Touches Dies: A Republican Strategist Gets Real About the Worst President Ever. In the Spiel, America’s worst kind of racism lies between microaggression and all-out white supremacy. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mike Pesca talks with Leon Neyfakh, host of the Slate podcast Slow Burn, about season two of the hit show. Subscribe to Slow Burn here.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

On The Gist, “the so-called chairman of the Intelligence Committee,” Devin Nunes. Superheroes and comic books may seem ripe for parody nowadays with the constant onslaught of nerd media, but The Venture Bros. has been doing it for years. Part Jonny Quest parody, part exercise in the esoteric, this show really leans into its own quirks. Jackson Publick, one of the show’s creators, helps us understand the wonderful absurdity of The Venture Bros., with its seventh season currently airing on Adult Swim.  In the Spiel, Omarosa. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices